About

$22,123

pledged of $20,000 goal

221

backers

Thank
you for visiting the Pray for Japan documentary film Kickstarter page! Together we can not only honor the incredible
real-life heroes of the Tohoku Tragedy, but build a movement that assures their
efforts will never go forgotten.

I hope the info here is useful for everyone –
please feel free to ask questions here or at FACEBOOK - and don’t forget to “like” the page! Oh, and we're on TWITTER too!

Isn't the Japan earthquake + tsunami old news?

Everyone knows about the tremendous devastation
caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami tragedy. You saw it on the news and online. But just because the media has moved on to
the next hot topic, that doesn’t mean the immense challenge facing Japan is now
behind them.

There are still 90,000 people living in shelters, 650,000 people are estimated to have lost their livelihoods, and entire
villages and neighborhoods have been destroyed. There is still tremendous work to be done!

What's the goal of this documentary film project?

Losing loved ones cuts emotional scars which run deep.

I believe we can help heal these wounds by
paying tribute to the amazing resilience and quiet spirit of the many victims
and volunteers of Tohoku. By letting them know we admire and respect them, we encourage them to continue the good fight –
at a time when even the strongest warriors would grow weary.

We also gain insight into how our own inner strength can help us if we ever find ourselves in a life-threatening situation. I believe we can all learn from these incredible heroes.

What's the documentary film about?

The film itself focuses on Ishinomaki, Miyagi –
the largest coastal city in Tohoku with a population of over 160,000 people.
I filmed the tsunami aftermath over a period of 5 weeks, soon after my
first couple of trips to Miyagi as a volunteer.
Having experienced the earthquake itself in Tokyo, I exchanged knowing
glances with the locals each time we felt an aftershock. But driving around the devastation caused by
the tsunami was an entirely different experience. It truly felt like a war zone.

I shot over 40 hours of footage with my Canon
5D – just me and one guy on audio (Waki-san for the first 3 weeks until he had
to return to Tokyo, then Uji-kun, a local student I met in Ishinomaki). While we visited many shelters and damaged
areas, the film focuses on the efforts of local volunteers and non-profits like
Network Miyagi and JEN as they work with the victims of the Minato Shogakkou
shelter and Ogatsu Junior High School.

The film’s theme of vitality and hope is
represented visually by the powerful symbol of the koi-nobori, the blue kite-like fish flying in the final shot of our
video. On May 5, kodomo-no-hi (children’s day), 18-year-old Kent Ito led a memorial
service for his 5-year-old little brother Ritsu-kun, proudly raising over 200
blue koi-nobori donated from across
Japan.

What will the
Kickstarter funds be used for?

Some of the money will
go into finishing the post-production – color grading, sound mixing, and
animation. The rest will go into
marketing.

The plan is to get
this documentary film in front of as many people worldwide as possible. To do this, one crucial method is film
festivals. Each film festival costs
money - if we submit to hundreds of festivals that in itself requires a hefty
marketing budget. Other marketing
efforts such as Facebook ads, in addition to the grass roots social media
effort, will be needed to get the word out to as many people as possible.

If we can raise beyond
the funding goal, we can work on Phase 2:
making all of the raw footage available for free on the Internet under a Creative Commons license.

希望 - on the sign below - means "hope", the most critical of all human emotions.

This film is only
possible because of an amazing group of volunteers and supporters – please
watch the “special thanks” video below to honor them.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $50 or more
About $50

A DVD copy of the Pray for Japan Film and 5 photo prints (at least 5" X 7") shot in Tohoku including shipping (add $10 for international) plus a digital copy and Special Thanks in the credits section of the film.